The dog days of summer may have arrived, but Clackamas County's commissioners aren't kicking back with mint juleps and folding fans. Quite the contrary, in fact. On Thursday, they'll consider a handful of regulatory changes that should interest dog owners, both those who license their pets and those who don't. You know who you are, scofflaws.

Annual dog license fees in Clackamas are a bargain, at least by tricounty standards. Making your dog an official county resident, as mandated, will set you back only $18 if you've done the responsible thing and sterilized the animal. A comparable one-year license costs $21 in Washington County and $25 in Multnomah County, which also mandates cat licenses. The annual cost for the latter is $12 if your cat's sterilized. But we digress.

On Thursday, Clackamas County's commissioners will consider a proposal that would increase annual dog license fees by 33 percent, bringing them almost to Multnomah County territory. The revenue generated by the $6 tacked onto every license – about $144,000 per year – would allow the county to hire two people, a dispatcher and an additional animal control officer, to address barking-dog complaints. It also would pay for brochures and other educational material.Along with the fee hike, the commission will consider adding "continuous annoyance" language to county code, which would allow officials to refer the owners of nuisance barkers to mediation along with the neighbors who report them. Following up on annoyance calls is what the new officer would spend much of his or her time doing.

Why mediation? Because, says county dog services manager Diana Hallmark, "sometimes the issue is about the barking dog," and at other times it's "about a myriad of issues" and the barking dog is just the trigger.

Incessantly barking dogs being a genuine quality of life issue, all of this sounds perfectly reasonable ... unless you're a responsible dog owner and you do a little math. The county licenses from 24,000 to 25,000 dogs, says Hallmark, who estimates that the county's entire dog population is closer to 120,000. She calls Clackamas County's compliance rate, perhaps 20 percent, fairly typical.Think about what that means, though. The county's most responsible dog owners – those who take the trouble to get their animals licensed – are expected to bear the cost of enforcing a county ordinance that addresses the behavior of irresponsible dog owners. There may be some overlap between the two groups, but it's likely to be fairly small.

In an effort to boost the number of licensed dogs, the commission will consider another proposal Thursday. This one would establish fines for veterinarians who fail to report rabies vaccinations to the county, as required. The vast majority of vets do report vaccinations, says Hallmark. Still, improving compliance would allow the county to cross-check dog records more comprehensively and ferret out license slackers. Multnomah County has such a fine on the books, but has not had reason to impose it.

Boosting compliance would at least make the fee hike a marginally smaller affront to the county's most responsible dog owners. Still, it would make better sense to pay for new staff without raising dog fees at all. This is especially true given the possibility that barking dogs will play a small role in many of the conflicts that will be resolved through mediation.

If the county commission does follow through Thursday on the barking-dog plan, thousands of people in Clackamas County, including the owners of unlicensed dogs and the neighbors of nonstop yappers, should be grateful for the county's small population of responsible dog owners, who will foot the bill for a problem most of them had no hand in creating.

Meanwhile, dog owners in Lake Oswego and Happy Valley should be grateful that their local governments handle dog licenses. The annual fee in both places for sterilized animals is $18, which is where it will remain regardless of what the commission does Thursday.